1. Introduction

When you edit LaTeX, HTML, BibTeX or TeXinfo sources in Emacs,
package X-Symbol provides some kind of WYSIWYG by using real
characters for tokens like \oplus or &trade;. It also
provides various input methods to insert these characters. Thumbnails
for included images and real super-/subscripts and are also supported.

1.1 X-Symbol's Copying Conditions: GPL

(This text is stolen from the TeXinfo manual, Edition 4.0).

The programs currently being distributed that relate to X-Symbol include
Emacs Lisp files and X11 font files. These programs are free;
this means that everyone is free to use them and free to redistribute
them on a free basis. The X-Symbol related programs are not in the
public domain; they are copyrighted and there are restrictions on their
distribution, but these restrictions are designed to permit everything
that a good cooperating citizen would want to do. What is not allowed
is to try to prevent others from further sharing any version of these
programs that they might get from you.

Specifically, we want to make sure that you have the right to give away
copies of the programs that relate to X-Symbol, that you receive source
code or else can get it if you want it, that you can change these
programs or use pieces of them in new free programs, and that you know
you can do these things.

To make sure that everyone has such rights, we have to forbid you to
deprive anyone else of these rights. For example, if you distribute
copies of the X-Symbol related programs, you must give the recipients
all the rights that you have. You must make sure that they, too,
receive or can get the source code. And you must tell them their
rights.

Also, for our own protection, we must make certain that everyone finds
out that there is no warranty for the programs that relate to X-Symbol.
If these programs are modified by someone else and passed on, we want
their recipients to know that what they have is not what we distributed,
so that any problems introduced by others will not reflect on our
reputation.

The precise conditions of the licenses for the programs currently being
distributed that relate to X-Symbol are found in the General Public
Licenses that accompany them.

1.2 Brief Summary of X-Symbol

X-Symbol provides a minor mode which make use of characters in
the Latin-1, Latin-2, Latin-3, Latin-5, and Latin-9 font (179 chars +
294 char aliases), the Adobe symbol font (109 chars) and the xsymb1 font
(165 chars, distributed with the package). Additional fonts could be
used easily.

These characters are used in the buffer to represent tokens
(e.g., TeX macros, SGML entities, more "token languages" could be
added easily) in the file. The conversion is done automatically
when visiting the file, saving the buffer and turning the minor mode
on/off.

Offers some info in the echo area for these characters (e.g.,
that the character under point represents the TeX macro \leadsto
and that the macro is defined in LaTeX package `latexsym.sty').

Allows to use a 8bit file encoding which is different from your
"normal" 8bit file encoding, e.g., you can visit TeX files with
\usepackage[latin5]{inputenc} even if you normally use a Latin-2
font.

Provides a kind of "poor man's Mule" when running on an
XEmacs without Mule support: it can display more than 256
characters via font-lock and removes most annoyances resulting
from the fact that, without Mule support, many "X-Symbol characters"
are actually a sequence of two chars.

Provides fonts for single-line innermost super- and
subscripts to be displayed with per-buffer control. The
invisible part, like <sub> in HTML, is revealed at point.

Displays thumbnails for images at the end of image insertion
commands with per-buffer control (e.g.,
\includegraphics{file} in LaTeX, <img
src=file> in HTML). They show a scaled-down version of the
included image files (using convert from
ImageMagick). A single mouse click
on the image or command invokes the image editor for the corresponding
image file.

It does not and will not provide commands to hide (more or
less) uninteresting parts of your document or fontify them differently.
This is more the task of the corresponding major mode or
font-lock, e.g., font-latex. (I admit, the support of
super- and subscripts might let you think that this is a good point for
the todo list of package X-Symbol.) Using outline-minor-mode or
folding might also be an alternative.

If you prefer a more WYSIWYG-like document processor, you should
probably use LyX or GNU TeXmacs. Here are some reasons
why you would use Emacs/XEmacs with package X-Symbol instead:

You have complete control over the LaTeX source. X-Symbol supports
more characters.

You can read any LaTeX source and you write normal LaTeX code,
i.e., package X-Symbol does not use any special format.

1.3 About this Manual

Apart from this manual, there are two other sources of information about
X-Symbol:

The web pages of X-Symbol provide a summary of X-Symbol, including some
screen shots. You are strongly encouraged to read them carefully. They
probably provide enough info for the standard user and can be found at:

The online help for commands (functions) and user options (variables) is
quite technical. It is shown during customization and when using Emacs'
Help menu.

This manual is somewhere in between: it more detailed than the web pages
and less technical than the online help. For example, when explaining
some functionality, it states the default behavior, gives an impression
of what can be customized, and it even lists all related user options,
but it does not describes the technical format of possible values of
each option.

If you want to learn something about X-Symbol's internals, e.g., if you
want to define your own token language, see 7. X-Symbol Internals.

This manual does not explain Emacs in general or some optional programs
used by this package such as convert (used to produce the image
thumbnails). It also includes no installation instructions for those
programs and the author of this package will not help you with the
installation of those programs (sorry for that).

You do not have to learn this manual by heart before sending a question
to the maintainer of X-Symbol, but you should give the impression that
your really have tried to find the necessary information yourself and
spend some time making your report precise. Before sending a problem
report, please read 8.5 How to Send a Bug/Problem Report.